Happy New You?: Starting Over

By Reverend Dr. D. Darrell Griffin

Presented by Omni-University

Several months ago, my son, Bryce, was in our family room playing a game on his PlayStation. The game wasn't going well for him. He was yelling and complaining that the game was unfair and difficult to win. A few minutes later, however, I heard him laughing and shouting for joy. I wondered why he was so happy so, I asked him, "Are you winning the game? ” He told me that everything was fine because he had pressed the "reset" button on his PlayStation. When I asked him what that meant, he replied “Dad, if you don't like the game you're playing, all you have to do is press "reset" and the game starts all over again. Just the idea that ,"All you had to do was press "reset" and the game would start over again" was very promising. “It would be nice if our lives had a "reset" button", I thought. On another occasion, while waiting at the ticket counter at an airport, with my other son, Miles, I had an encounter that illustrated the advantage of having a mechanism by which we could "reset" our lives. I happened to notice the question on a strip of paper on the Agent's keypad:

“Are you carrying anything given to you by a stranger?”

The notice was put there in compliance with TSA'S strict security measures, to remind the Agent to ask each passenger this question. As the agent processed our tickets, I realized the importance of that question for all of us : “Are You and I carrying anything given to us by a stranger(s)?" Are we unwittingly harboring any ideas, beliefs, opinions, judgements, intentions that have been assigned to us by others?” I continued to ponder this question because, in many cases, I think know exactly who gave me some of the "stuff" that I have been carrying around. Ironically, some of them weren't strangers. They were people with whom I am very familia: some who were known to me as family members and friends, "Besties" and "Road Dogs". I picked up a lot of negative "stuff" from them, much of it unbeknownst to my own self, and this "stuff" is still weighing me down. It's like- I've been carrying a bomb around in my luggage - one that keeps on exploding. It has been complicit in blowing up, at least some, of my relationships, opportunities, and, undoubtedly, much more than I realize. There is a very real possibility that when we are in discomfort or fear, or have difficulty with dysfunctional patterns in our relationship(s) or in financial areas, we may be endangered by a destructive agent. We may have been unaware at the time we accepted it. But, since it is now in our possession, we need the wisdom and the power to carefully extricate it from the luggage of our lives. Quiet as it's kept, you and I need a "Reset". It should come as no surprise that some of the "problems" that many of us are carrying are "problem people". We are carrying the weight of people who ought to be carrying it themselves. We are enabling and encouraging people, including family members, who don't really appreciate being helped or encouraged. We are committing ourselves to people who are not committed to anyone other than themselves- people who may not even be committed to their own progress. Indeed, if it is possible that matters can be made worse, some of us aren't just carrying "stuff" from 2020, we are carrying "stuff" from 2019, 2018, 2017..."stuff" that is adding weight but adds no real value to our lives: "stuff" from our child and neighbor "hoods". We have become what "R&B", "Hip-Hop", "Neo- Soul" Artist, Erykah Badu sings about in her single entitled, "Bag Lady". “Bag Lady, you gon’ hurt yo back, Draggin’ all them bags like that... Bag Lady, You gon’ miss yo bus. You Can't hurry up, ‘cause you got too much stuff." Many of us have become"Bag People" so weighed down with "stuff" that we can hardly make it. In fact, some of us barely made it into 2021 because we're still trying to carry all those bags filled with the non-essential "stuff" that we've accumulated over our lifetimes.

As we entered the New Year, some of us were optimistic. We thought that we were prepared to offload some of our surplus, to lay our burdens down. We thought that, if we brought them to the Lord, we could leave them there. And we could have- except that we never took our hands off our bags. Now, we look around and find that we are still overloaded. We still haven't "let go and let God". It is time for us to wake up, Beloved, and accept the facts that:

• the longer you and I keep carrying this unnecessary baggage, the more blessings and opportunities we are going to miss. "We can't hurry up, We got too much "stuff".
  

• Every day- every mile- that we carry these bags is one more day without total peace.
  

• Each of these days is one more day that is keeping us from our blessings and our destiny.
  

We must cease saddling ourselves with excess baggage: Bags of excuses; Bags of drama; Bags of issues; and, Bags of dysfunctional relationships. The Lord has sent me to declare, "Enough! "Stop the negatives"!"Games Over"!!

2021 is a new year; It's "Reset Time"!; Let us take time to discontinue our bad games, i.e. bad relationships, bad habits, bad enterprises, and more. Aren't you tired of being a bag person? Aren't you tired of making the same promises year after year without following through and getting positive results? Aren't you tired of swearing up and down, every year, that you are going to change: that you are going to get rid of ___( you fill in the blank)? Aren't you tired of all that procrastination? Of all that "stuff"? I know that I am. I had to ask myself some of those same questions, and finally, the Lord admonished me to break out of the ordinary, to make a change, to go deeper.

If and when you are ready, God has a word for you. God is ready to empower you and to give you direction and purpose for your life. God is willing to help you get in right position for your miracle, for your blessings, for your deliverance; God is able to help you offload and lay aside some "stuff". God is ready, willing and able to help you "Reset". Happy New You!